
Class JP535£i5 
Bonk.A47LfS 

Gopyriglit^ _i9j2_2^_ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT. 



LITTLE CHRIST 
STORIES 



B r 



,v< 






*a! 



[^ 



X\*^ ELIZABETH CALVERT 
Author of "THE TWO HOUSES," Etc. 




BOSTON 
Roxburgh Publishing Company, Inc. 

19 2 2 







Copyrighted, 1922 

By The Roxburgh Publishing Company, Inc. 

All Rights Reserved 



M>R -5 B23 
©C1A705153 



CONTENTS 

Page 

FOREWORD 5 

MUD COURT 7 

LITTLE DINKY 22 

FELICIEN 33 

THE YOUNG MAN — THE DIVINE 
ENCOUNTER 53 

THE PRIMROSE PATH 66 

THE BLESSED 81 

CHARON'S PENNY 96 



FOREWORD 

The motif of these little stories — the Christ 
motif — should have the strongest appeal. 
The stories are not trying to get by, by reason 
of cheap piety. They are not sloppy, barren 
religious productions, but should satisfy the 
most sensitive taste by reason of their artistry 
and literary execution. 

They deal reverently with our most sacred 
conventions. 

Nor should they be boresome because of 
the freshness, the keen observation of char- 
acters. The characters are human, the in- 
cidents lie in the lower strata of life. Into 
the daily rut is thrown the transforming 
impulse that the world waits for forever. 



I 

MUD COURT 

It could not be said that twelve-year old 
Maug believed in miracles or that she under- 
stood in the very least the art of histrionics, 
and she had never even heard of such a thing 
as a Passion Play. Yet the results of the 
little production in the corner of the woodshed 
could have come only through some blind 
tide of passionate understanding — something 
slipped over. The denseness was flouted, 
just as in an electric storm a yielding straw 
has been found buried deep in the apparently 
unyielding trunk of a tree. There was not 
a bit of conscious intelligence in the whole 
thing, unless it was Maug's sympathy for all 
sorts of boys, not excluding by a long way 
those of her own neighborhood, the Gutter 
Brand. 



8 Little Christ Stories 

At home she was variously classified. 
Should a newcomer happen to praise another 
member of the family in Maug's absence, her 
mother would toss her head high and proudly 
say, "Oh, you should see oor Maugie," and 
the praise lost nothing by the pleasant 
Scotch dialect. "She's a queer creetor," 
was Grannie's dictum, "she kens ower 
muckle." Her father, a man better in- 
formed than those about him, was often seen 
to look quizzingly at her, and surmisingly, 
and that was all. Evidently he had made 
up his mind that she was the one to hang 
the Bible on, and he hung it. It was the 
one book there, and Maug read it every 
day and night of the week, and twice a day 
and night on Sunday. So it was only in 
the stress of some revelation, idea or emo- 
tion that she could be said to live, for there 
was no decay in her faith. This was why 



Little Christ Stories 9 

the shed came into play. Something had to 
be expressed. 

To the boys and girls of Mud Court, Maug 
was at once a fairy tale and a grotesque to 
whom they looked for amusement — amuse- 
ment wholly of the imagination, for there was 
nothing else. Her riotous imagination peopled 
the Court with Jordan Rivers and Seas of 
Galilee. Her gestures, though theatrical, 
were natural, in the best sense, for, mind you, 
wherever her power came from, she could play. 
And it was not so hard to be a Bible character, 
when Bible characters were all she knew. 

It is a long way from Mud Court to Jeru- 
salem, where the Lad was found in the 
Temple attending to His Father's business. 
The Court was as dear to Maug, was as 
much her business as His Father's was to 
Him, hundreds of years ago, and it may have 
been her topmost, if unconscious thought, 



10 Little Christ Stories 

that what happened of old was a voucher for 
what could happen again. 

It had rained for a week and the uncross- 
able yard Was a sea of slithery mud, with 
sundry planks and rubbish as stepping stones 
to the dozen or so habitations opening 
thereon — or under thereon, for there were 
some cellars. 

The locale of the play was not exactly a 
woodshed — it was really a section of a large 
abandoned barn, abutting on the alley, the 
leading thoroughfare of Mud Court; but it 
did not belong there. Nothing so sumptuous 
belonged there. 

One end of the shed was partitioned off 
for the stage. To be sure, there were no 
property rocks, papier-mache thrones, canvas 
trees nor sheet-iron thunder. As for stage 
trickery there was none, not a scrap of 
gilded scenery. One decoration alone dom- 



Little Christ Stones 11 

inated the shed; a great cross, whitewashed 
on the gray characterless boards, the per- 
pendicular bar of the hugh daub reaching 
up-up-up, and the arms extending wide 
across the stage. Some old joints of stove- 
pipe (a find) set far apart represented the 
pillars of the Temple. Of course there was 
no ringing up and no curtain, and the only- 
attempts in the way of make-ups were culled 
from the gutter. 

Ginty McGee wore one such — a find from 
the sweepings of a cheap picture dealer — a 
fiery colored, torn Bleeding Heart. It was 
pinned to his breast. Nels Schafer had a 
Crown of Thorns from the same source. It 
was made of stiff paper and was stuck into 
his forelocks like an Indian's quills and 
feathers. 

Maug's scheme up to the very last minute 
was a generality. But sometimes a power 



12 Little Christ Stories 

seemed to come with her idea. Her only 
instructions to the little actors were that 
they must think themselves to be the char- 
acters they were to represent, anything else 
was to come from themselves — something 
they had heard her read, something learned 
at Sunday school — that was all. Sometimes 
a little kick came in that was surprising, even 
the kind that draws an audience out of the 
seats for the fraction of a second. 

The abjects were beginning to arrive, not 
exactly through the Golden Streets, but 
bringing with them the mud of the Court. 
A few trickled in, but the most of them at 
first glued their eyes to the familiar knot- 
holes and chinks. 

With swift touches, Maug was arranging 
things; hauling a boy here and there, settling 
him where she wanted him. She assigned 
little Matt his place with a few whispered 



Little Christ Stories 13 

words. Matt was garbed to represent the 
Boy — Christ in the Temple. The garbing 
consisted of hemp strands on his head, and 
a piece of an old shawl draped like a toga 
about his ten-year old shoulders. 

Stumpy came in, clumsily scraping his 
crutches on the rough boards. She drew 
him gently to a comfortable soap-box and 
patted him on the head. 

"Please, Maug," he panted, grasping her 
hand as she was leaving, "Jerry an' Mickey's 
outside an' they're goin' to throw things 
atcha. They're waitin' fer ye to begin." 
There were lines of pain over his thin pale 
face; he had been weary and sick since day 
began, but he clung to Maug, and was there. 
"They're goin' ter give ye trouble," he 
warned her. 

Jerry had been Maug's leading man, but 
had become a backslider. There was a good 



14 Little Christ Stories 

deal of the dare-devil about him; he could 
rarely take his part like any other boy but 
must fall into some extravagant humor. 
This humor of late had taken the form of 
flouting anything spoken of that could not 
be tested by bodily senses. 

"They're at the big knot-hole, Maug," 
Jerry pointed in the direction. His voice 
was anxious. For some reason he had an 
overwhelming horror of all roughness. 

Maug crossed to the place indicated, but 
stopped to set up a mite of a child where she 
would be out of the way of clumsy feet. 

Outside Jerry and Mickey could be plainly 
heard. 

"Aw, what d'ye say she's goin' ter have 
ackted now; cos she gotta have them Bible 
fellers always. I ain't goin' ter ack them 
any more, Moses an' the rest. I'm tired of 
them." Jerry thrust up his head. He was 



Little Christ Stones 15 

always dirty, yet always looked clean through 
the dirt. 

"Golden streets, fer one thing, an' a Boy, 
a kid. I hear her tellin' Stumpy." Mickey 
had over-eager eyes, and was pinning Jerry 
to the boards with his glance. "Matt's 
gotta ack the Kid — the Jesus — the one 
we had ter Sunday School, wot they 
put inter the Bible long ago." This was 
announced with the ease that goes among 
children. 

"Matt!" snorted Jerry. "He's to be 'er 
leadin' man, is he? That's cos I wouldn't 
ack that Kid — the one that was in the 
Temple. We don't have them now-a-days, 
they don't come here ever; nor none of them 
Peterses nor Thomases nor none." 

Swift as Elijah's whirlwind, Maug was 
beside them, and bringing in the two Isca- 
riots settled them not far from Stumpy. 



16 Little Christ Stories 

As she released a hand from Jerry's collar 
she bent close and looked at him, just looked. 

Jerry's bump of veneration was lost in a 
hollow, but if he had no adoration to bestow 
on the Mary, he adored Maug. She was his 
magnet. The flush on his boyish face and the 
jerking of himself together, pulling himself 
up, told her he would be good, or try to be. 
It looked as if her power over him had re- 
turned, a power of a kind with that which 
Jesus had over the poor possessed ones. 

If Jerry had not sat so near the stage he 
might have controlled himself. But little 
Matt was inordinately proud of his part, the 
stage Christ, the most ambitious yet 
attempted, and the honor of appearing in it 
drew upon him the scorn of Jerry. 

"Aw, gwan," he jeered, unable to control 
his feelings. "Ye's a fake Christ. Ye's 
hairs come off. Ye ain't the One in the 



Little Christ Stories 17 

Temple. Them Christs never come here now 
wot come long ago. She's foolin' ye; tryin' 
ter make believe." He reached out to snatch 
the hemp strands from the head of Matt. 

"Ye's a dirty good liar." A gust of im- 
patience swept the usually patient Matt, 
and his dirty little fists held fast to his head, 
"Ye can't ack any more; Maug won't have 
ye. Ye's — ye's a Jew. Ye's one of the 
Jews wot hung Him — wot crucified Him." 

"Ye's a Jew yerself." Jerry made a threat- 
ening move, "I'll — " His good behavior had 
vanished; he was seething with chagrin to 
see another boy take his ^place, the leading 
role, although it was his own fault, as he 
knew, that he was merely an onlooker. 

Maug sprang to the combatants. The 
hubbub spread and she swiftly took up her 
place at the foot of the cross and raised her 
right hand high. This gesture, which could 



18 Little Christ Stories 

likewise galvanize the shed into action and 
understanding, was now for silence, which 
instantly fell upon the place. 

Then suddenly there was a something — 
an illumination, a tremor, a shivering of 
golden light — or could it have been light- 
ning? If not there was yet a glow that lit 
up the dreary day and made a golden-walled 
Jerusalem of the shed, as if a small maelstrom 
of divinity itself were let loose. It was too 
brief to believe in — or even to con over after 
it had passed, yet while the dazzle continued, 
it spread glory. But the glory, mindful of 
the gray, suddenly withdrew, and in the 
twinkling of an eye the shed wore only the 
doleful symbol as before. 

Some of the children looked bewildered; 
others seemed not affected at all. Matt 
was found weeping softly to himself, but 
would give no explanation whatever. 



Little Christ Stories 19 

It was Jerry who first broke the tension of 
the shed and brought it back to a more 
normal state — Jerry, the doubting Thomas, 
Jerry the arch-rebel. A subdued alterca- 
tion was going on in his vicinity. 

"Gwan!" he was saying hoarsely, "ef they 
c'u'd come them times, them wot cured 
cripples an' raised the dead an '-an '-every- 
thing, then they c'u'd come into the barn 
now. An' I seen Him; He floated down as 
if the roof came off an' stood right over 
against Stumpy. It was Him, the Boy in 
the Temple, wot she's always speakin' 
about, wot we saw the picture of. An' I 
saw her too — Maug. At first she was leanin' 
against It — the way she often stands," and 
he pointed dramatically to the great emblem. 
"An' then, an' then, she seemed to rise up — 
up — up, an' soon she was all in a piece with 
it. An' then He was gone, an' I looked 



20 Little Christ Stones 

around an' everything was shinin' an' Stumpy 
was standin' there straight up without his 
sticks — they was lyin' there at his feet — an' 
an' I ain't tryin' to kid ye; it wasn't the fake 
over there, the fake Matt, at all, it was the 
real Kid — the little Jesus." 

Jerry said all this precipitately, as if he 
knew the convincing power of rapidity. He 
shook himself and drew his jacket, picked 
out with sundry patches, closer around him, 
as if the barn was the biggest kind of a place, 
and he too had shared in something. 

Others declared they saw something, but 
Jerry's testimony stood out clear and strong 
enough from the hazy versions — a real hark- 
back to Jerusalem times — the time set for 
the little play in the barn. 

Some small profanity and expressions of un- 
belief broke from a morsel of a boy, and Maug 
was there at once, her hand over his mouth. 



Little Christ Stories 21 

"Ye said the roof was off an' He came in. 
But it isn't, an' how did He get in?" Every 
neck was craned to the roof as Toby Shank 
spoke. That was rather a facer for Jerry, 
but he was saved reply by everybody crowding 
around Stumpy, whose leg was being solemnly 
measured with a stick, indeed both legs — 
by Mickey. 

"I seen nothin'," some one jeered. " 'Twas 
a kink in his knee, an' now it dropped down. 
Maybe his leg'll drop off. He's tryin' to kid 
ye. He's not cured." 

The caustic remarks went unheeded, for a 
procession was forming with Stumpy and 
Maug leading, Jerry carrying one crutch and 
Mickey the other, close behind, and all the 
others scrambling and tumbling after. The 
procession was headed for one of the cellars, 
Stumpy's home, and the uncrossable yard 
was now the Golden Street. 



II 

LITTLE DINKY 

Before the day of Stumpy's cure, the 
boys of Mud Court were, for the most part, 
a lot of defiant rebels and irresponsible to a 
degree, but immediately following the shed 
incident they became amazingly serious and 
watchful of all suffering. They might have 
been likened to the poor fishermen upon 
whom fell the power of the Holy Ghost. No 
treasures of Scripture were unfolded to 
them, they were not endowed with the gift 
of tongues, and they never attempted to 
expound or explain; but if there is such a 
thing as this descent, they seemed to have 
had that experience. 

"Little Dinky had convulshuns last night, 
Maug. He suffered orful afore he took 'em. 
I heard him cry out." Stumpy looked 
downcast. 



Little Christ Stones 23 

"The dear baby. The dear little Dinky. 
How he has suffered." Maug looked as if 
pain of spirit would wreck her body. She 
was fuller than ever of the fine zest for 
healing. They were standing at the foot of 
the great white-washed cross, alone. Stumpy 
looked as if he had shot up exotically in a 
short time. 

"Can ye think of something, Maug?" 
Stumpy 's eyes were reaching for Maug's 
soul. His faith in her, as was that of the 
whole gang, was supreme; and some delight- 
ful harmony in her kept their homage; yet 
not one of them knew just how or where or 
when the precious atmosphere — magical, it 
seemed — would be created into which the 
spirit of healing and helping entered. 

"I have thought of something, Stumpy. 
Come." Maug left the shed and swiftly 
crossed the yard, evading garbage heaps, 



24 Little Christ Stories 

jumping lightly here and wading there, as 
if she were treading a rosy pathway. When 
she arrived at Dinky 's home, a tumble-down 
affair, one of many look-alikes in the place, 
she gently pushed the door open and entered, 
followed closely by Stumpy. 

The sick baby lay in a wooden hulk of a 
cradle, an old-fashioned, hooded one, and at 
each flop of the cradle the little form rolled 
heavily from side to side. Maug took the 
mother's hand, patted it and resumed the 
rocking herself, a mere touch. The mother's 
sullen eyes were fixed on her. 

" Dinky 's goin' now, sure. What 'd the 
Lord give 'im me for? E's had never a well 
day since he was born. But he's a lot to me; 
he's just as much to me as — as — a healthy — 
Where — where — Did ye bring one in with 
ye, Maug? What are ye movin' yer arms 
that way fer — as if ye were holdin' some- 



Little Christ Stones 25 

thin'?" The mother's voice was tremulous 
and questioning and she turned her head 
from one to the other and back again to 
Maug, as if to make sure they were there. 
"I'm weak with watchin' an' must have 
been dreamin'." She dropped her eyes but 
quickly looked up again, as if a thought had 
suddenly occurred to her, "Don't ye see the 
baby — the strong one?" she turned to a 
drabby neighbor seated at the foot of the 
cradle, at the same time drawing the back of 
her hand across her eyes as if to clear away 
something. 

"The baby?" the neighbor echoed in a 
voice of scorn. "No, I don't see no other 
baby. What baby?" She didn't look as if 
a well or a sick baby either appealed to her 
sensibilities. 

"Little Jesus, Tender Shepherd," lisped a 
dirty mite perched on the table in the midst 



26 Little Christ Stories 

of unwashed dishes. She was quoting Sunday 
school. 

"Oh, that baby." scoffed the drabby 
neighbor. 

"I thought I saw a well 'un, a healthy 'un 
as was breathin' on mine; trying' to touch 
mine; reachin' an' reachin' for mine." The 
mother's voice trailed away as if not con- 
cerned with those present. Unconsciously 
she may have recalled Christ's touch from 
hearing the children repeat the Bible stories. 
"Didn't ye see Dinky smilin'? When did 
Dinky smile afore? Didn't ye see him 
smilin'? Don't you think he looks better?" 
This was to the neighbor who, with face 
awry, would now look neither at the cradle 
nor the mother. 

Stumpy was still standing close to Maug, 
cap in hand. The mother rose and faced 
him. "Yous was touched. Yous was 



Little Christ Stories 27 

touched. An' look at ye, whole an' well." 
Her voice was shrill in pitch now. She 
looked as if carved in stone as she pointed a 
long thin finger at him. Suddenly she wilted 
and her voice dropped to a deep earnestness, 
as, laying a timid hand on Maug's shoulder, 
she said, "It's yous, Maug, it's yous, that 
does it." It was the first overture the 
mother made. 

When the mother, the sullenness gone 
from her eyes, appeared in the weak sun- 
shine of Mud Court next day, holding Dinky 
aloft to the gang, every face was happy. 
The little chap was picking at a toy bird with 
his wasted fingers. He was but a rickety 
specimen and any day might see him go if 
the convulsions returned. She had stood in her 
doorway for some time before crossing the 
yard, and now hung around the shed, looking 
alternately shame-faced, defiant, hopeful. 



28 Little Christ Stories 

It was Jerry who brought her in, for 
the main thought was to get her into the 
shed — under the shadow of the Cross, 
perhaps. Mickey had preceded them, 
bearing some wisps of hay from the alley 
barns. He whispered to Maug, who was 
rigging up some sort of a manger out 
of an old box, evidently in expectation of 
Dinky's visit. 

In an instant Maug had her arm through 
the mother's, and after kissing Dinky softly 
on the cheek, led her right up to the foot of 
the Cross, and seated her at the side of the 
manger, now softened with the bits of hay 
covered with scraps of white cloth. Maug 
evidently knew whither she sailed, and what 
was a good and fair wind. The manger was 
ready. The mother and child were in the 
shed — over the door of which, instead of the 
classic injunction: "Abandon hope all ye who 



Little Christ Stories 29 

enter here," might be written: Hold fast to 
hope, all ye who enter here. 

"Ef the other one comes, the well one, 
wot she says she saw, what she says was a 
little Christ wot Dinky smiled at, they 
can be together," Jerry assured Mickey. 

The Brand seemed to take it for granted 
that Maug and the Cross would make good 
would prove effective. That which was so 
exceptional at first soon found place in the 
dreary barrenness of Mud Court. The faith 
tendencies of the children had evidently 
acted favorably upon their minds, causing 
mental happiness. Belief, actual belief, with- 
out a thought of trying to comprehend, had 
invaded the shed. 

"We give the Saloot first," Jerry nudged 
the mother of Dinky. 

"The Saloot?" the mother queried. 

"Ye must be still an' look at the Big 



30 Little Christ Stories 

Thing there," pointing to the Cross. "That's 
the Saloot." The mother's eyes followed 
Jerry's — up — up — up. 

Maug standing between the rows of old 
stove pipes, lifted up her right hand, and in 
a twinkling there was a hush, a silence deep 
and significant, and every eye was held in 
steady gaze for a minute on the Great Symbol. 
It was all they had to give to God. 

In another twinkling the entertainment — 
or whatever it was, for it could not carry a 
name — was on: the occupants of the shed 
were emptying out bits of Sunday-school 
verse, absurd applications of passages of 
Scripture and anything else that came ready 
of mind, making little lodgments of truth 
easy. And out of this chaos, and even 
pandemonium that sometimes reigned, and 
was listed with the plays, Maug could bring 
the shed-audience to order by facing the 



Little Christ Stories 31 

Symbol. It was in one of these pauses that 
the cry of the mother was heard. 

Once in a lifetime, perhaps never, such a 
cry is wrung out. This is how it happened. 

In plain view was the rough manger, in 
which sat Dinky and the double — the Beau- 
tiful One — the Child Christ. Dinky was 
smiling and holding out his little hands, and 
the Well One, a glorious Babe, seemed to 
envelop Dinky in a rosy atmosphere, with 
eagerness, intentness and love depicted on 
the cherub face. Slowly they drew closer — 
closer — and then were indistinguishable; and 
— Dinky sat alone, supreme, glorious, whole. 

Again the cry of the mother, as she snatched 
her babe hastily to her bosom, lest the magic 
which had made him whole might undo him 
again. 

"It's yous, Maug, it's yous that does it. 
When ye turn an' face THAT," and she held 



32 Little Christ Stories 

up to the Cross an offering, her babe, "some- 
thin' f oilers ye an' sweeps away the things 
— the bad — like Stumpy's leg and Dinky's 
fits." The voice was husky and tremulous. 

A trembling form of transport and owner- 
ship, which made the audience stand aside, 
was that of the mother carrying bright-eyed 
Dinky from the shed to her home in the Court, 
amid the low but tumultuous applause of 
the Brand, which had at length recovered 
its balance and was following in a body. 



Ill 

FELICIEN 

The shed was changing; the commonplace 
shack was beginning to have a history — a 
veritable Lourdes reputation. Its great or- 
nament, the Cross, it still wore; and on the 
wall near it were various things testifying to 
its efficacy. Stumpy's crutches, mute evi- 
dences of pain and lameness passed away, 
were stuck in old leather brackets; above 
them Dinky 's lineaments — before and after 
the cure — were depicted by Nobby, the 
artist of the Cross, and with the same ghastly 
pigment — whitewash. In the beginning of 
the little plays anything was good enough to 
draw capacity houses. Not so now. All 
unawares, the importance of "atmosphere" 
was recognized and more exactness was to 
be seen in everything. 



34 Little Christ Stories 

The shed still depended upon Maug for its 
success — Maug, calm, and even indescribable, 
of a kind not yet believed in. But everyone's 
touch, too, was an asset in the plays. And 
the plays themselves succeeded through their 
very bareness. 

The older boys, Mickey, Stumpy, Jerry 
and Nobby, shed fixtures now, were beginning 
to look respectable. 

Their mothers were being incidentally 
drawn into the uplift. Patches were still 
there, and in plenty, but they were neater, 
and the tubbing of old trousers was becoming 
fashionable, as the clotheslines testified. 

Not that the shed was there without protest. 
It had drawn down condemnation, and scoff- 
ing and derision were heard in some quarters. 
But Maug was gradually winning to herself 
the worst of the Court — a melting pot, if 
ever there was one. 



Little Christ Stones 35 

The yard still pulsated with the joy which 
the cure of Dinky evoked — Dinky, who, 
without great or vain effort, as at a single 
glance, was made whole. The wonder was 
daily repeated in the casual gossip of the 
Court. 

"I got a big scare, sure; I thought Dinky 
was goin'," Mrs. Peters would tell neighbor 
after neighbor. Making the circuit of the 
place, held high to the gaze, in his mother's 
arms, Dinky drenched the yard with faith — 
biased always to that which was extraordi- 
nary and surprising. 

"Let's make a place for Dinky to play in, 
now that he's goin' to be well." Mickey's 
voice was like honey and he was surveying 
the Yard with the eye of a landscape gar- 
dener. "Let's make a little park an', an', 
mebbe we'll get a daisy to grow in it." 

"Oh, yes. The rubbish heaps are gone an' 



36 Little Christ Stories 

we can make it here. An' I know a place 
where they trows out daisies an' things 
wot they don't want." Jerry suited the 
action to the words. With old barrel staves 
in lieu of shovels, the two dug and scraped 
and shovelled until a miniature plot held 
out hopes that grass, like truth, would come 
up out of the earth, so that Dinky when 
strong on his feet could toddle around 
there. 

"We gotta the drains good now. An' 
Stumpy's cleared a walk to Maug's stair. 
Here she comes now." Mickey dropped his 
stave and stood erect, touching his cap with 
military precision. 

Maug's eyes swept the yard and the boys 
— principally the boys — with loving approval. 
She walked around and touched each one with 
deliberateness, as if she could not keep her 
hands off them. "Come to the shed soon, 



Little Christ Stories 37 

boys, we're ready to begin." Another loving 
pat all around and she was gone. 

"Her eyes are blue, ain't they, Jerry?" 
Micky's sheepishness was lost on Jerry, 
whose gaze was following Maug's every step 
over the converted yard. 

"Blue. No. They're gray — they're, 
they're — " Jerry's own eyes took on a retro- 
spective look. "They're eyes wot sees you 
all through." 

"No, they're black — black as night," as- 
serted Nobby, with that assurance that 
belongs to some boys. He and Stumpy 
had joined in the stave act, making the 
dirt — no, the mud fly. 

There was more discussion on Maug 
between the boys, then Nobby, as if the last 
word had been said, announced: 

"I'm makin' a drawin' of her." His tone 
was anything but sensitive. 



38 Little Christ Stories 

"Like the angels wots in the books," 
Micky was wide-eyed with wonder. Stumpy 
and Jerry leaned forward in admiration. 

"Na. Ye never se'd angels like her; them 
angels wot ye see in the books — but I se'd 
one onct in a window an' that one's the 
one I want to make. A great angel with one 
foot on the land and one foot on the sea 
declarin' things." Nobby looked as if he 
had received his inspiration. It was very 
evident that he thought Maug needed a 
large canvas. 

"That wos a man — that angel wot you saw, 
cos I heard Maug read it," corrected Stumpy. 

The Book of Revelation was a favorite 
with Maug. 

"That's nothin'. Wait an' see what kind 
of an angel I mean." Nobby walked briskly 
off in the direction of the shed, followed by 
the others, each carrying his stave. 



Little Christ Stories 39 

Active eleventh hour preparations had 
gone on all morning in the Shed, for a little 
out-of-the-way thing to take place that 
afternoon. The theologic basis was the old 
story of the Magdalene — the Magdalene 
originating not alone in the Christ city of 
Galilee, but anywhere. The little dramas — 
frequently bits of Mud Court life by Mud 
Court actors — still bore upon the Bible 
themes of help and cure. Yet Mud Court 
people were always the ones worked for. It 
was not altogether like children's play, 
because eager expectation took possession of 
every little soul. The surroundings of Mud 
Court, by destroying all interest in life, 
threw the Brand back upon itself — upon the 
shed with a kind of holy passion. The repe- 
tition of the cures did not result in blunted 
efforts. Rather, the help vouchsafed had 
given the shed definiteness. 



40 Little Christ Stories 

And the theme was the Magdalene on the 
afternoon of Felicien's daring intrusion into 
the shed — the story of the Magdalene and 
Christ's forgiveness, Felicien, who had drifted 
into Mud Court from no one knew where, 
who had scrubbed for a living, and been a 
good girl not so far back. She had gone to 
Sunday school once in a time there. But 
the maelstrom of the streets had caught her 
and she mingled with Maug and the children 
no more. 

Felicien must have been enlightened as 
to the theme of the shed by some say so of 
the Court, for she never had been there 
before. Maug had difficulties enough in 
the way of getting those whom she wanted 
there, where there were no white lights of 
the cafe life, no red glare of the midnight 
whirl. 

Boxes and babies alike were kicked or 



Little Christ Stories 41 

shoved out of her way, others were elbowed 
wide, but not a protesting word went up 
as the fury made her way to Maug's side, 
and with a voice thick with passion asked : 

"Whata the joka, partners? Whata you 
gotta there? Me — . Me — a?" Felicien was 
standing before a picture of a stricken 
Magdalene and the Christ tacked on the wall. 
The picture was to take the place of a char- 
acter, and was glaringly conspicuous from 
the embellishments around it, the work of 
Nobby's free brush. "Youa alia liars." 
She made an angry move to throw down the 
crutches, but stopped upon seeing Dinky's 
portraits. "Noa not alia liars. Dinky's all 
righta. Me neva go back on Dinky." A 
look of love broke into her resentful eyes. 
But the look of love soon fled. She faced 
the shed with scornful eyes and contemptu- 
ous snapping fingers. 



42 Little Christ Stories 

"She was on a tear all morning," Jerry 
whispered to Mickey. "She banged in and 
out her place all morning like — like — An' 
I heard her say she was goin' to put one 
over on Maug, but didn't know this was 
what she meant. Maug may have to put 
her out. Be ready." 

Felicien was thick- featured, with a billow 
of blue-black hair, a copious rope of it lying 
half across her face. Her eyes were glorious 
even in their rage, with an expression of high 
intelligence, and a faint carmine tinged each 
cheek. A little red cap Was perched on the 
side of her head. She looked as if she had 
dropped from the canvas of some Latin 
painter. 

The larger boys, Mickey, Jerry, Stumpy 
and Nobby, all zealous porters, were grouped 
around Maug with precision, sensing trouble. 
Maug, in the midst, held high her hand to 



Little Christ Stories 43 

the shed, which was becoming noisy with 
excitement. 

Again Felicien's fury returned as she stood 
before the Galilean woman. In her ges- 
tures, in her looks was seen the emotions 
and transports of her soul — when like a 
virago, when like a beast, when with her 
fists and open hands she struck and tore the 
face of paper — tore it from the wall, stamp- 
ing it with her heels into the board floor, 
grinding it with her heels into pulp, crying 
in rage, "Thata mea? Youa makea mea 
thata?" She wheeled and faced the stat- 
uesque group on the stage — the boys stood 
as if they could be candidates for disciple- 
ship, so grave, so earnest did they seem; 
and Maug, who bore herself as if these things 
might be something in her power, as if she 
had reached a stage where the outcome of 
anything there could not be doubted. 



44 Little Christ Stories 

"I knowa the storya, ef I don'ta knowa 
anotha. I was a converta once. You knowa 
mea, Maug. You knowa I was a — a — I was 
a gooda girl." 

Thus appealed to, Maug might have been 
the Mary — the mother of the Son; not from 
any attitude or gesture towards Felicien, not 
from anything out of the common in her 
appearance, but from the tremendous pity, 
the tremendous love pouring from her strange 
eyes. From her girlish height she seemed to 
look down on the woman before her. 

"Christ a heala they tella mea, the sinful 
as well as the sicka." That was an admission, 
and the statuesque group on the stage made 
a move to close in around Felicien; with 
love in their eyes and with outstretched 
hands they would have welcomed her, were 
eager to win her. 

The next step dispelled this hope, for with 



Little Christ Stories 45 

the utmost audacity she wheeled before the 
great Emblem, with derisive finger and 
brazen face, shouting passionately: 

"Youa, Cross, a liar too. Youa helpa 
me neva." 

The boys broke from Maug, made a rush 
for Felicien, and in a twinkling the shed was 
in a tumult, the riffraff at the rear, always 
ready for a diversion, yelling and shouting 
with all their might. The shed resented 
the atrocious insult to the Cross more than 
anything else, because it had come to believe 
that in some way, though it did not under- 
stand how, there was protection in its pres- 
ence there. It became more dazzling each 
day, became whiter, if not by Nobby 's re- 
newing brush, then by the renewal of their 
own minds. 

Order was in time restored to the shed, 
but not to Felicien, who seemed to be at 



46 Little Christ Stories 

grips with conscience. Only Maug's inter- 
ference had prevented the boys from driving 
her from the place. As it was, she still held 
the fort, defiant, masterful, determined, 
fearfully earnest. 

That Felicien had been impressed by Mud 
Court stories of Stumpy's and Dinky's cures 
was natural. The surprising and the miracu- 
lous — -that was what the Court wanted, and 
so long as it got what it wanted, asked for 
no explanations; and was far from establish- 
ing the character of the events even if ex- 
planation had been forthcoming. Nor did 
it try to make out this or that; but there was 
faith, belief. 

The big boys had stood apart, not a word 
escaping their lips, a different attitude from 
the first days when they spoke as they pleased. 

Maug seemed everywhere and everything 
at once. Yet for all that, there was a certain 



Little Christ Stories 47 

detachment about her ; no matter how power- 
ful the emotions around her she seemed not 
of them. And yet she was emotion itself. 
Some fine sense of unconscious art always 
held her. 

Felicien lifted her foot as if to spurn the 
Great Thing on the wall from her, but Maug 
was swifter and had her arms about her; she 
held her with a sure and firm grip. "Felicien, 
Felicien," she spoke in the girl's ear. It 
might have been the Lord saying, "Saul, 
Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And 
Felicien was on her way to Damascus. 

"Don'ta look at me thata way, Maug. 
You looka like Him," and Felicien pointed 
to the lurid picture of the Bleeding Heart 
on the wall near, then to the floor where, 
strangely enough, the face of Christ remained 
unmutilated in the picture she had just 
demolished. 



48 Little Christ Stories 

This gave the shed a new light on Maug, 
and an interest never felt before, and a 
demonstration of the shed order took place 
at once. Perhaps they recognized something 
in Maug, their leader, that could not be ex- 
pressed. The shed jumbled together without 
any ordinarily apparent object, yet it always 
had the wide-eyed astonishment of the 
interested child. The fact that the shed 
could not make out this or that had no im- 
portance. The real point was that it was 
carried away by emotion, interest. There 
was a real sense of beauty through it all, 
which made an appeal. There was no veiling 
over with theatrical tinsel here. Felicien's 
red cap was the only bright note. Her 
absorbing swarthy face held one's eyes 
through it all. 

Felicien's mood seemed to soften for a 
moment. A look soft as the Galilean skies 



Little Christ Stories 49 

themselves overspread her countenance. With 
exquisite rhythm she swayed, seeming to fill 
the rude place with her presence, suggesting 
one knew not what. Her voice changed to 
a creepy, beating rhythm — beat, beat, beat, 
the beat of the eternal, as she bleated: 

"No one wanta me. Maug no wanta me. 
I was gooda girl; I worka; I helpa; Maug 
no taka me back. No one wanta me; no 
one taka me back; Christ no wanta me; 
Christ no taka me back." 

The contrition in her voice drew Maug's 
arms about the penitent, but she turned on 
her like a raging tempest. 

"I hata you, Maug. I hata Christ. I 
hata everybody. I am down an' outa; you 
say thata; I say Christa he no hawked about 
lika the vegetables. He no come here. He 
liva in heaven. Youa alia liars. Christa 
no helpa me." 



50 Little Christ Stories 

Felicien wheeled like a streak of lightning 
before the Cross again — as if the air were 
charged — as if like a wireless the strong 
currents set up connected the two agencies 
that made possible the communication. She 
stood there in her pitiable finery, pleading, 
raging, humbled, haughty, desperate — and 
ready. 

"No one wanta me; Christ no taka me back; 
Christ no wanta — " 

As if she had made sudden port, Felicien's 
illimitable protest was checked, and she 
raised her eyes far up the Cross of Christ — 
the Christ who saw a justification for the 
Magdalene's existence. A sudden exclama- 
tion in her own tongue escaped her lips, and 
she slowly fell back, back, crying: 

"He looka down on me. He looka down 
on me. Me! Me! The crucified. The son of 
Mary." Uplifted eyes gazed passionately, 



Little Christ Stories 51 

not as if she saw Him afar off — but there — 
there on the Sign before her. At first she 
poured out words, which, so far as intelli- 
gibility was concerned, might have been 
Greek. 

But as if she feared doubt of what she 
claimed, she entered into particulars that 
annihilated dispute, convincing herself, as 
it were. Her words now came rapidly, clear. 

"He there on the Cross — olda Cross, olda 
boards. His feet rest on little shelf. Ah, 
they bleeda; they bleeda for me. She spoke 
as if she Was narrating a living, natural thing 
that belonged there, as if she saw a wonder- 
ful human form of flesh and blood speak 
and move there. With indescribable ardor 
she knelt and wound her hair round and 
round His unapparent feet, round the rude 
rest splotched with blood which she claimed 
she saw. 



52 Little Christ Stories 

She arose from her knees, her beauty 
heightened by her billow of unbound hair, 
blue-black and deep. 

With the tremendous Cross speaking 
against, as it were, or what she had to cope 
with, her big voice rang out dramatically: 

"No one wanta me? Yes. He wanta me. 
I no knowa my Christ wanta me. I knowa 
now. He heala. Christ heala. He heala 
me." 



IV 

THE YOUNG MAN— THE DIVINE 
ENCOUNTER 

The shed was in a hum. There was to 
be read during the afternoon a little thing 
Maug had sketched: a humble, happy play 
of Galilean times, little children watching 
the gentle Jesus pass by; and the session was 
in a way a benefit for the "tots", the little 
mites of the Court. Each one had some- 
thing to recite, and the reserved seats — 
those nearest the stove-pipe aisle and the 
ones facing the Cross, were allotted them. 

The shed had been undergoing repairs 
and additional touches, too, of late. 

"Have I gone over it even enough, Maug? 
Does it show streaks?" 

Nobby, the shed artist, had just finished 
a careful whitewash renewal of the great 



54 Little Christ Stories 

Emblem. And how it shone. It seemed to 
preside over the place, shedding divinity 
everywhere. 

"It's beautiful, Nobby!" Maug's eyes 
glistened as she stood back and surveyed the 
Great Thing. "Jerry '11 help you take away 
the ladder." 

In turn Nobby's eyes worshipped Maug. 

"And isn't the shed getting to be a real 
place, Nobby? It looks — it looks like 
the Temple — the picture we saw. There's 
Mike and Stumpy nailing up the old broken 
place where the wind came in so strong. I 
must tell them we're nearly ready to begin." 

Maug darted across the shed reminding 
one of that ethereal thing — the humming 
bird — and to try to describe her would be as 
elusive as a description of that bird on the 
wing. That was it: she was always on the 
wing. Always on the wings of Faith. And 



Little Christ Stories 55 

if she could not have grappled with the sordid 
reality of the Court with vision and imagina- 
tion — the only things she could dabble in 
without restraint — if she could not have gone 
on with a sense of necessity, over-estimated, 
perhaps, how could she have dreamed of 
evoking the Christ? 

And the shed was branded now with cures, 
with the mystery, so-called, of how He ad- 
ministered help on earth. 

Now nothing here could ever be really 
called a play, for there was no mere con- 
templation of scenes or acts. Every one 
who could, or would, took part — choppily 
cited verses, odd texts, scraps of stories all 
interspersed with individual comment, were 
to be heard on all sides — only — all roads led 
from the Bible. Here it was thought possible 
to convey one through a perfect Odyssey of 
possibilities. 



56 Little Christ Stories 

" 'No d'unkard inherits the kin'dom of 
'eaven.' My teacher knowed that one an' 
she tol' us the d'unkard never, never could 
get into 'eaven, never." 

" 'No d'unkard inherits the kin'dom of 
'eaven.' " Shrill and high rose the minute 
voice; over and over she lisped the words. 

It was the little sister of Dinky who broke 
in on the audience before the time. It was 
not her turn, either, but she had learned her 
piece and was going to say it, and all the 
emphasis the mite possessed was placed on 
the text, although she could not have had a 
thought of its dramatic value. 

As if in answer to the variant of the familiar 
legend by the tot, a giant of a fellow, seem- 
ingly half-stupid, lumbered in, filling the 
room with many badly scared mites. Appre- 
hensive conjectures were heard on every 
side. 



Little Christ Stories 57 

Maug, from her station at the side of the 
Cross, held up her hand for order and silence. 
It did not seem possible, but staring her in 
the face was the fact that the young man 
was there. Maug looked startled at first. 
She could not put an embargo on a visitor 
on account of his size — that would have 
been a relapse into the darkness. She was 
ready to welcome any one in need of cure — 
but such an elephant of a cure. As a model 
for the painter or the sculptor, his propor- 
tions would at once single him out. But he 
looked too immense, able and living. 

"It's Chauncy, the young man who lives 
at the end of the Court. He had the jim- 
jams the other night. He's stopped drinkin' 
but he's stupid yet. That's 'is mother 
follern 'im. She bust somethin' in 'er inside, 
they say, cryin' so hard the night he had the 
jim-jams." 



58 Little Christ Stories 

Mike was at Maug's side; the other boys 
not far away, ready for any emergency. 

On he came, reeling, more, it seemed, from 
exhaustion of body and nerves than from 
drink. His clothes hung around him any 
way; but they were clean — his mother saw 
to that. He was bareheaded and a forest 
of dark touselled hair hung over blue-black 
eyes, deep and searching. He did not turn 
nor look to the right nor to the left; did not 
look at anything nor anybody, yet went 
straight up to Maug, who gently pushed 
her bodyguard closing in around her. 

She stood like a young priestess before 
him. She was going to find a place for this 
experience, strange though it was. 

"Can you tell me — can you tell me any- 
thing — can you tell me anything about 
these Christs?" 

Usually the young man's voice was like a 



Little Christ Stories 59 

fog-horn, but it now held a whining, senti- 
mental coax in it. 

"Can you tell me anything about these 
Christs? Can you tell me — can you tell 
me — can you tell me anything — " 

His voice now took on a chant — he had 
been a chorister before he was a drunkard — 
a little unruliness in the throat was the only 
jarring note. 

"Can you tell me — " Then as if he had 
suddenly waked out of a tremendously real 
dream, and overcome with bashfulness, he 
remembered to laugh at himself, when he 
had asked a dozen times, "Can you tell me 
anything about these Christs?" 

"Yes — yes. We can tell you something 
about these Christs. Yes, we can, can't 
we, Stumpy? Can't we, little Dinky? Bring 
him here." 

Maug held out one hand to Dinky 's mother, 



60 Little Christ Stories 

never once letting go the lapel of the young 
man's coat with the other. 

"We can tell you one or two things why 
we could not help knowing about these 
Christs." 

Maug spoke composedly enough, but it 
would have moved heaven itself, for the 
pity, the yearning, the earnestness, that 
underlay the words. 

"Leggo me, leggo. Got no pers'nal feeling 
for fellers like you, but leggo." 

The effects of the liquor, under the influ- 
ence of which only was the young man jovial 
and free, had left him completely and he was 
now as determined to go out as he had been 
to come in. 

"No, we can't let you go; we can't. Can 
We, Mike? Can we, Stumpy? Can we, 
Jerry?" 

Maug's appeal to her troupe was a diver- 



Little Christ Stories 61 

sion and the young man forgot his hurry. 
And, too, Maug's tone was reassuring. She 
never presented these things with deadly 
earnestness. Not at all. There was a certain 
lightness, not frivolity, an airiness (if that 
word can be used) that seemed a necessity 
to the part — to carry it off, as it were. She 
never was any more serious than in the 
matter of ordinary affairs. 

"I heard her, the little one — 'No drunkard 
inherits the kingdom of heaven.' How are 
you going to trim a drunkard? You run it 
fair now. Ain't he got a cinch on hell? 
Leggo me." 

The young man evidently did not want to 
use force or he could have broken away in 
a minute. He had lived coarsely — even 
grossly — but he was not coarse, was not 
gross. Then, resuming his swagger and 
good nature, he, by way of travesty — to 



62 Little Christ Stories 

show off — recited some passages from the 
Church of England service so resonantly, in 
so beautifully rounded a fashion that the 
shed immediately gave an adult-sized ap- 
plause, quickly sensing some new acting 
power. 

Just as the applause was going on Felicien 
arrived. She was back to her scrubbing 
now — was "gooda girl" again. But her 
spare time was spent helping in the shed, 
helping Maug. A little mending class had 
been formed and Felicien was expert with 
her needle. She ran into the midst of the 
wrangle in time to see the young man begin 
tugging again, and to hear him repeat, 
"Leggo me. The little one was right. The 
drunkard's got a cinch on hell all the same. 
Leggo." 

"No, Maug. No, Maug. No leggo him. 
Hoi' him fast. The drunkard no gotta cinch 



Little Christ Stories 63 

on hell; he gotta cinch on heaven. Christ 
no leggo; Christ neva leggo." 

Felicien, all her pent-up fervor let loose, 
in this up-to-the-shed moment, came in 
here something like a play within a play — 
and some acting inside of that. 

Her acceptance of Christ was no lukewarm 
affair; it was wholly of some old code called 
into being by no one knew what. And it 
must be that some states can be shared 
without knowing all the lines. 

The young man had been so engrossed 
with Maug — as if she had been astray in 
this old gray shed, that he did not notice 
that in his scurrying he was being led instead 
of leading; that instead of Maug clinging 
to him, he was clinging to her. He was like 
a bark in distress in tow — fore and top gallant 
masts gone and his sails in ribbons — all but 
submerged. 



64 Little Christ Stories 

And at this moment, too, the place was 
filling fast — faster and fuller than ever before. 
All the Mud Court people had turned out in 
full force to watch the young man and his 
mother crossing the yard. It was the social 
event of the shed, and for interest none of 
the others were beside it. People came to 
watch the drunkard who had never opened 
an eye to the shed before. No, none of them 
knew just what they expected to see. 

What they did see, was the young man 
haled before the whitewashed Cross, the 
Cross that was Christ's, Maug, Felicien, the 
big boys and some others surrounding and 
holding him. He had not noticed it before 
— and it was such an old thing to work on. 
He just stood still before it. There it rose 
to the old roof. 

He is awake; he tries to break away. 

There is a soft rustle, a brushing as of 



Little Christ Stories 65 

wings passing over the group as a bene- 
diction — as a signal that the trial is over and 
He stands in their midst — for are they not 
there in His name? 

Whatever ecstacy it was that spoke in 
Chauncy's attitude, it held the gaze of all. 
It was as if he had had an intimate session 
with his Master — a divine encounter — his 
head falling trucefully over, as if lying on 
the breast where the beloved apostle's in the 
long ago had lain. 

The rough silence was broken by the wordy 
tot who had proved an essential cog in the 
denouement of the cure. She was snuggled 
up against Chauncy's mother, still shaken 
with sobs, and was quoting again, "An' He 
shall wipe away all tears. My teacher tol' 
me that one, too. 'An' He shall wipe away 
all tears from their eyes'," 



V 
THE PRIMROSE PATH 

A watchfulness, a knowingness even, seemed 
to lend itself to the rays of the old-fashioned 
street lamp, under which a girl of rather 
rural and comely appearance loitered. The 
light seemed to focalize the district over 
which it presided with a strange, an important 
perspective. Polaris-like, its rays pivoted 
cross-sections of things beneath it and kept 
them, as it were, in their respective orbits. 

And even an old-fashioned street lamp 
can have some gumption, some grace, good- 
ness knows. A girl is not the same in the 
shifty shadow of night, when even the gutters 
look sinister, as, say, in the soft glow of 
sunset, or the serene dawn of morning. 

No matter how far over the lamp leaned 
■ — as if it could shift its angle, the face of the 



Little Christ Stories 67 

girl was not quite clear. Nor could the 
searchlight, so to speak, get at the subter- 
ranean of her, could it? But if it could not 
get at the subterranean, the heart of her, it 
could get at her apparel, the gaudiness of 
which, like something which has become a 
well-known fact, becomes evident to all. 

But the best of her seemed to be swallowed 
up in some mist of the night or something. 
Would there be an effacing morning? 

If the girl, obtruding her cheap embroidery 
on the night, felt at all bewildered, afraid, 
she did not show it, rather grit to be out 
there alone, at least the lamp — set for a 
light to her feet — did not show her trembling. 
She swaggered occasionally as if bolstering 
up her courage, and set her inadequate, 
bronze shoes and stayed, watched, looking 
this way and that, up and down. 

Farther down the street two big police- 



68 Little Christ Stories 

men watched too, champions of virtue, they 
stayed their feet also. The directional light, 
illuminating the sloppy sidewalk, stopped 
short of the policemen — or did they stop 
short of the light? Deep in the shadows 
they watched with lynx eyes the girl, as if 
some intrigue were afoot. 

Once or twice the girl hugged the protect- 
ing shadow of the lamp post as if fearful of 
the men of the law. 

The lamp appeared to be watching too — 
a trio of watchers — as if fearful that something 
would happen — the worst would happen, as 
if things were worth watching. The light 
watched, the girl watched, the policemen 
watched. Were there no other watchers of 
the night abroad? 

Suddenly the girl became alert and began 
primping up, fussing at her hair and adjust- 
ing her bosom ornaments. She attended to 



Little Christ Stories 69 

the correct disposal of her flimsy skirt; 
snatched a powder puff from her stocking 
top and dabbed her face without any dis- 
crimination whatever. 

There was something amateurish about it 
all, something even pitiful. Blase? Not 
in the least. 

The lamp had no doubtful way of showing 
things, light does not lie if men do. As 
though the stage was all set, the lamp was 
weighted with its responsibility, it seemed, 
as an illuminative feature, it defined a bit 
of sidewalk in the opposite direction from 
the officers even more sharply — if other 
places were obscure. 

As if conjured from the sidewalk on the 
instant, as was the Bush of Fire in the Old 
Story, a man, full in the light, came swiftly, 
buoyantly in the girl's direction. As were 
wings to his feet he came ; a god-going fellow, 



70 Little Christ Stories 

radiant, haloed — or was the light up to some- 
thing tricksey. 

The girl swaggered in front of the stranger 
as he stepped to her corner. He gazed 
beamingly into her would-be-bold face, not 
disparagingly, nor yet with scrutiny, and 
passed his arm in a winsome, gentle manner 
around her, saying softly: 

"I knew you, dear Myrtle, afar off, and 
you — you knew me. You saw me in the 
ray of light clearly. You kindly waited for 
me — and here, too, in this — " His eyes 
took on sorrow as if the equivocality of the 
district jarred his spirit. 

The girl drew back involuntarily from 
his encircling arm and laughed loudly and 
brazenly in his face, retorting, — 

"Ah, g'wan that bluff! Callin' me 'Myrtle.' 
'Tain't Myrtle nor Mamie nor Mabel nor — " 

"You are the same Myrtle of old; you have 



Little Christ Stories 7 1 

not changed. We are here at last. I have 
sought for you — waited for you." His eyes, full 
of tenderness, of blessedness, of something like 
the new morning, were turned full on her 
pouting face. His voice sounded as if cym- 
bals were playing near, yet the voice too was 
exceedingly grave with authority, command. 

The girl winced and evidently made an 
effort to behave decently. 

"You are on your way to your aunt, are 
you not?" He continued, " I too, am going 
there. She will be pleased to see us — out 
of the night — out of the night." Evidently 
he knew her antecedents. 

He passed his arm through hers and 
directed her steps down a side street, the 
light dogging their receding footsteps. 

At his touch she swayed and almost 
swooned in rapture on his bosom, as if 
unable to withstand the alluring contact. 



72 Little Christ Stories 

As the Magdalene of old with Jesus, she 
acted freely, as if privileged. 

But only for an instant did she give way 
to the adoration; her recent susceptibility 
died quickly down. She drew angrily away 
and turned as if to run — back to her wallow 
— then wheeled to his side again and mocked : 

"Goin' to aunt. Myrtle of old. She will 
be jolly glad to see us out of the — Give us 
some more taffy, won't you? See here, let's 
get down to business — the — the cops are 
gone." She laughed discordantly, and a 
single note of the laughter, a hollow echo, 
came back. 

His lips moved, "Does no man condemn 
thee? Neither do I." He did not add, "Go 
thy way and sin no more." 

The valiant policemen in the shadow of 
the tall buildings were interested. Eluding 
the light they began to step warily to within 



Little Christ Stories 7 3 

hearing distance, ready to pounce upon and 
bag their game. But the girl and her escort 
faded away so subtly they were nonplused. 
They drew smartly forward under the lamp. 

"That's the same guy again," the regular 
told the detailed on the case. "He's the 
one we want. Beat it, Bob." 

Down the side street after the suspect 
ran the uniformed men. But no matter how 
fast they ran no headway was made, the 
delinquents were not to be overtaken. Their 
exploit was again a failure. The street, as 
far as could be seen, was clear of pedestrians. 

Was the lamp tricksey again? Had it 
blurred the official eyes? 

The baffled police, back under the lamp 
again, an odd out-of-the-way tale of the 
nights, of the streets was unfolded. The man 
so well acquainted with "Myrtle" was wanted. 
He could not be caught. He was taking 



74 Little Christ Stories 

trade away from them — cleaning up loose 
districts in a way unknown before in the 
annals of police courts. 

"He has his 'Myrtles' and his 'Annies' 
on the tip of his tongue and knows the whole 
bunch every time," the regular beat told the 
other. "This is a new one tonight; she's 
not one of the reglars." The officers of the 
law were at their wits' end. They had the 
man and they had him not. More men 
were needed for the search, they would 
report at headquarters. 

But they were there, were on the street— 
the girl and her Friend. He was guiding 
her on, leading her as a little child is led. 
The officers' eyesight must have been 
deficient. Time and again the girl seemed 
torn between emotions. Sometimes she 
seemed ready to fall at the feet of her 
guide and wipe them with her hair. Again 



Little Christ Stories 75 

acting giddily, speaking too loudly, too 
freely. 

Her companion looked as if not willing to 
be privy to what she hinted; treated her as 
if she did not know what she said or did. 

The street ended abruptly, swallowed up 
by a straggling common, inconceivable in 
the darkness. A familiar by-path brought 
them in front of a building suggestive of an 
old synagogue more than anything else, but 
that may have been the effect of the night 
too — some glamour of meek Galilee wafted 
into western space. 

The girl took a last desperate stand; the 
unregenerate in her rebelled. 

"What you buttin' in, in my affairs fer ef 
thet's all you hev' to show? You take me 
right back where you found me. None your 
bisness buttin' in. You'se a fake." 

His ardent look fell on her face for a second, 



76 Little Christ Stories 

then he resolutely drove her in before him, 
as a lost sheep is guided out of the driving 
storm into the shelter of the warm fold by 
the patient shepherd. 

At the far end of the room, which the door 
opened directly upon, a Pharaoh-faced woman 
stood in an attitude of expectancy and wait- 
ing. Something about her suggested Jeru- 
salem, Mothers of Israel, Marys. She did 
not come forward immediately, but stood 
with both hands placed against a door jamb, 
her profile presented like a cameo to the room. 

"This is our Myrtle, Mother. She has 
come home. She is cold and weary; she has 
come out of the night." A curious inflection 
of voice clung to the word "night." He 
could have spoken it from the creation. 

The woman addressed as "Mother" greeted 
them with a peculiar delicacy of manner. 
Her bearing was of one cultured by contact 



Little Christ Stories, 11 

with superior minds, which tones the entire 
personal life. 

They drew the now subdued girl forward 
in front of a table whereon stood an ordinary 
kerosene lamp, a gaudily painted shade 
adorning it, such as may be seen on any rustic 
parlor table. The girl passed her hand 
reminiscently over the red, red rose as if the 
"still life" had feeling — remembered. Then 
she looked at her entertainers curiously, as 
if questioning where they had resurrected 
the old thing. 

"We had one at home like this. Where'd 
ye git it?" She was aroused; the words 
came gulpingly. "An' we growed these 
flowers too, jist this color, at the front walk. 
My, but they leaves lots of dirt 'round when 
they'se through bloomin'." She took the 
pink hollyhock from the glass dish on the 
table and covered her face an instant. Then 



78 Little Christ Stories 

she slowly looked around and stepped un- 
steadily to an old wooden rocker at the 
side of the open fire. "This is like our old 
rocker too — its it, I declare, the one me an' 
Jeddy, my little brother, always sat in, an' 
rocked, an' rocked, an' rocked. We — " 
Something broke. She began to cry. 

The Pharoah-faced woman left the room, 
returning almost immediately with a white 
china bowl filled with warm bread and milk, 
which she placed on the table until she drew 
the chair close to the hearth and seated the 
trembling girl therein, saying: 

"You are weary and cold and tired; rest, 
rest, and be fed and comforted." The 
woman's voice held the purity of His who 
called her "Mother" but with less command 
of the vocal chords. 

Outside of the modern lamp and chair, 
the room was devoid of anything common, 



Little Christ Stories 79 

was even Judean in its furnishings. There 
was a low, painted chest in one corner; there 
were earthen vessels placed here and there, 
and cushions on the floor, suggestive of 
eastern customs. 

The silence of the room was broken by 
the deep, regular breathing of the now 
slumbering girl. In the depths of the old 
rocker — in Nirvana — she lay looking inno- 
cent and happy as a child, a smile curving 
her parted lips. One arm was thrown around 
an imaginary "little brother" apparently, 
for she moved her hand caressingly over 
something in her sleep. Her feet were 
straddled wide apart where they rested on 
the cushion before the fire, unwittingly dis- 
playing the cheap lace undergarments and 
loud hose of the night. 

An inscrutable smile rested for an instant 
on the face of the girl's Friend, giving place 



80 Little Christ Stories 

to one of vigor, authority, love, as He looked. 

He began drawing on his outer garment, 
which He had removed upon entering. The 
woman standing a little apart was evidently 
pleading with Him not to go out into the 
night again, which had turned cold and 
stormy. She stood in a reverent, obedient 
attitude, the embodiment of devoted woman- 
hood. She spoke in a strange tongue, it 
could have been Syrian. 

For answer, He silently pointed to a brilliant 
painting hanging on the wall, the rich color- 
ing of which gave the room its needed tone. 
The picture illustrated the glorious Christ 
Child, imbued even at that tender age with 
Saviorship, rebuking, refusing his mother 
in the Temple. The inscription beneath the 
picture was his answer — translated it read: 

WOT YE NOT I MUST BE ABOUT MY 
FATHER'S BUSINESS 



VI 
THE BLESSED 

It may have been that a period of recogni- 
tion had come between the boy and his 
grandfather; or it may have been that this 
harping on one string — the fret of the sea, 
as it were, in the old man's heart — consoled 
him more than anything else; for whatever 
is passed quickly upon and done with, ceases 
to hold interest. 

In the grandfather's unfortunate desire, 
for spiritual cameraderi, besides the daily 
rehearsal of the sea spoiling him of a son, the 
boy's father, he stored the child's mind with 
accounts of the mysteries of lost northern 
ships, surging tides, sunken reefs, darkness, 
storm, treacherous shores and seamen's su- 
perstitions. 



82 Little Christ Stories 

It was as if the boy — a little instrument, 
an oboe, had been put upon a simple air all 
alone, and drowned with a full orchestra of 
hurricane, horror and disaster. Newspaper 
illustrations of looming vessels in the toil of 
the breakers, hung on the walls, fed his 
little imagination to the extreme. 

And of the one that pounded cruelly to 
death on the rocks — the ship that carried 
the boy's father to his doom — the grandfather 
always told with a curious little slip of a 
sob, a strangled something. Yet tell it he 
would over and over to the earnest-souled 
little fellow, who drank in every word and 
never wearied of the tale. Stirred to sorrow, 
the human soul taught the flesh to sing the 
same mournful strain. 

The incomprehensiveness of the boy always 
left something over for the grandfather to 
bring up again. But the boy did not always 



Little Christ Stories 83 

wait for the grandfather to begin. Pointing 
to the picture of some battered hulk, he would 
ask: 

"Was there wots and wots of people on 
the big, big ship, Ganpy, wot and wots?" 

"Lots and lots of people, Blessed; lots of 
people on her when she pounded there on 
the cruel rocks." And the old voice caught 
with its usual little sob — the heaviness of 
Woe. 

"Why didn't somebody fro a wong, wong 
wope, Ganpy? See, like this," and out from 
the little firm hands, fit only for primrose 
dallyings, shot a stout coil of rope and 
caught dexterously on the aimed-for-goal, 
a chair rung. Over and over the practice 
continued, interspersed with unwearied ques- 
tionings, the Great Puzzle, how to get a rope 
long enough and strong enough to reach and 
save a vessel in distress. 



84 Little Christ Stories 

"When I fro my wong wope, Ganpy, the 
big ship won't pound on the wocks any more. 
See, Ganpy, that's how I tie it," and, a mimic 
life-saving exhibitor, the boy tied and untied 
the rope time and again with wonderful 
celerity. The old man smiled wanly, for the 
saving thought. Anything that promised 
deliverance from the breaches made by the 
sea found ready answer in his heart. 

The home was on the west coast of Van- 
couver Island, on one of the inland passages 
that led to Alaska. These waters are trav- 
ersed summer and winter, day and night, 
under clear skies and dark, and in rain, snow 
and fog, through the channels run tremen- 
dous tides, so that passage must be timed to 
take advantage of the flow. The place was 
lonely, and intercourse with neighbors was 
infrequent; occasionally they visited the 
keepers of the few lights that beaconed here 



Little Christ Stones 85 

and there a treacherous rock or shoal. But 
by far too few lighthouses protected naviga- 
tion over the surging tides of that great 
Waterway. So the boy and his grandfather — 
an old derelict and a spry little yacht — could 
often be seen together on the shores. The 
boy would trim his short steps to the old 
man's shuffling gait and look and listen and 
ponder as they went along. 

These shores were said to be dotted with 
sunken wrecks; and it was said, too, that the 
spell of lost ships was on every soul that lived 
within hearing of the call of the breakers. 

One place in particular held a peculiar 
fascination for the two. On stormy days, 
the waves rose like separate mountain peaks 
and ripped on the shore as in a tide-way. 
An old storm-twisted tree rose from the rocks 
alone, two gaunt branching arms standing 
out to the sky; seen through the mist, it 



86 Little Christ Stories 

looked not unlike some ethereal cross on 
Calvary. Here the boy, while the grand- 
father stood guard over him from the waves, 
would often practice throwing his rope. 

It could not be said that the old man 
looked with longing on the sea, yet hours 
were spent in its company, and in its reminis- 
cences. 

The boy's mind was legend-laden. He 
never forgot a thing told to him, which was 
a pity in some respects, for the lost ship 
possessed his mind completely; all other 
stories, while not forgotten, faded before it. 
In his little mental gropings, things became 
quite clear. The picture on the kinetoscope- 
film of his brain never grew dim. If for a 
short period he played ordinarily, soon up 
would flash the question in his own baby 
tongue. 

"Was it a big, big ship, Ganpy, and was 



Little Christ Stories 87 

there wots and wots of people on it wif my 
papa?" 

And then there would be the old sob- 
answer, "Lots and lots of people, Blessed." 

"See, Ganpy," the boy said one day during 
the walk, as they stood looking out upon the 
waters, "there's the ship right down there 
in the water. My papa's there; he wants 
my wope; he holds out his hand for it. See." 
and he pointed to the empty shallows. 
"Papa'll catch the wope quick, like that, 
when I fro it," and he made a gesture 
as of some one throwing out his hands to 
catch. 

"No, no, Blessed, the ship is not there; 
there's nothing there but spindrift." But 
even the abnormality of the boy's talk could 
not deter the bereaved father from the 
repetition of the daily rehearsal of the sea's 
unfriendliness. He would not see that this 



88 Little Christ Stories 

long custom of talk was superinducing upon 
the child's mind new and absurd ideas. 

There's something about the sea and ships 
that makes people fanciful. The sea plays 
pranks sometimes; old sailors talk of its 
materializing trick. But then sailors are a 
superstitious lot. 

One day when there was an almost imper- 
ceptible mist across the heavens, the boy, while 
a light seemed to dazzle his young eyes, point- 
ed to a shadowy wraith — a phantom ship 
which he said he saw hovering above. 

The wastes of water have the same powers 
as the land; mirages are as likely to occur 
on the one as on the other. At times the sea 
can hide a thing; and at times show it plain. 
Some elfish reflection doubtless. 

No punishing hand or harsh word had 
ever degraded the little one's soul, yet his 
grandfather had repeatedly warned him that 



Little Christ Stories 89 

any attempt on his part to go to the rocks 
alone would bring punishment. The constant 
reiteration of this threat, the only one the 
boy had ever heard, showed an utter ignorance 
of the child soul on the part of the grandfather. 
The threat, as if it had hypnotized the child, 
set his brain working on the very thing, so 
that one day, in the temporary absence of 
the older members of the family, he took his 
cherubic way, full of faith to see and save a 
ship on the rocks. 

It seemed as if in his little soul the con- 
stant rhythm — the beat, beat of the waves, 
with their voices as rally set the lust of salva- 
tion upon him. 

It is told in the books that a soul going to 
earth leaves the Father's House in the 
morning a little child and returns at night 
an old man. He was a child going forth on 
his mission; how would he return? 



90 Little Christ Stories 

He stopped on the way to watch the small 
and active life — the water-bugs flashing up 
in the mirror of a quiet pool, and at a shoal 
of minnows that darted here and there and 
hid in among the stones in the slow runnel. 

The sky had become overcast while he 
dallied by the pool, and the storm of the night 
before broke again in all its fury by the time 
he reached the rocks. A tremendous tide 
was rushing through the narrow channel. 

The waves seemed to break into a sorrowful 
ovation, as he with difficulty reached the tree. 

Dimly his childish perceptions must have 
groped back to his grandfather's recitals: 
The big, big men wouldn't throw a rope; 
they turned away on the big water and left 
the ship to go to pieces. "He wouldn't do 
that" he often told his grandfather. In his 
mind's eye did he see the passing ship in the 
distance — the coward ship — sneak past and 



Little Christ Stories 91 

leave the other one to its fate? Though men 
and women were seen clinging to the doomed 
thing, hanging on to the masts and rigging, 
the coward ship went by and made no effort 
whatever to save. 

Something loomed up, presented itself to 
his sea-familiar eyes. Was the sea playing 
some preposterous joke? Though the 
breakers sounded enormously loud, there 
was a sound above them. 

The salt spray and the haziness overtaking 
everything began to envelop the boy where 
he stood at the foot of the unmindful tree; 
but all undaunted, he began throwing the 
rope, though buffeted by unruly winds. If 
his grandfather's loving arms were only 
around him to hold him tight against the 
horde of waves. The little form swayed 
hither and thither like a reed. Then 



92 Little Christ Stories 

It was deep in the afternoon when, hot-foot, 
the boy's uncle made the spot, and the 
trumpet of the waves mingled with the louder 
boom, boom of a vessel going to its death on 
the rocks. Through the ghostly spray and 
semi-darkness, men and women were panting 
up the cliffy slope. All around was com- 
motion and outcry. 

Most of the passengers said they saw no 
boy; they saw nothing. The captain said 
he saw a man — a beautiful man — standing 
by the tree and throwing a rope and waving 
to him. That, though, was just for an instant. 
It was when the flash came from somewhere — 
the light, clear as jasper — caused the tree to 
leap like a living thing out of the dimness 
and showed them that help was near. And 
they shot the wedge-tipped rope from the 
cannon's black mouth, and it caught, and 
they were saved. A miracle. They had 



Little Christ Stories 93 

pounded on the rocks all night. But when 
they went ashore no man was there, nothing 
at all but the old tree with the rope caught 
fast high up on one of the old everlasting 
arms. 

But they were saved. It was all a blur, 
a mystery at the best. But they were saved. 

"We traced him here, he carried a little 
coil of rope." And the relative told to the 
wild-eyed passengers the story of the boy. 
And it was such an appeal as was more than 
the Nazarene's, because it was the tragedy 
of a real child essaying the salvation of a 
ship whose fate was not forewritten in the 
annals of the past. 

An old miner now came forward. "That 
woman over there," he said, pointing to a 
young woman on her knees, "the one that 
sang hymns all night when we thought we 
were going to destruction, she says she saw 



94 Little Christ Stories 

Christ — not walking on the sea, as in the 
old Bible story, but hanging on the cross — 
hanging on the old tree there." 

"Yes," said a woman standing by, "and 
here she is. And she says that at first it did 
seem like a little child, but when she looked 
again it was a man — a Christ." 

"She's sure a queer one," said the miner. 
But he added parenthetically, "Her prayers 
and singin' sounded good enough to me, 
though." Then rather thoughtfully he 
walked over to the tree and muttered, "an 
old cottonwood. Wouldn't use that kind of 
wood up north for building purposes nohow. 
Christ was crucified on a cross made from 
the wood of that tree." 

The incommunicable cottonwood '. The vi- 
brations set up in its wooden body ages ago — 
could they have been re-set up by the touch 
— the tremor of the little Saviour near? 



Little Christ Stories 95 

"Blessed l" It was the old man who now, 
breathless, staggered upon the scene. He 
stooped and groped at the foot of the tree 
and unwound from a crotch the little rope — 
the tragedy of which it was the mute re- 
minder; he had been there, as it declared. 
"The dreadful waves!, The awful waves! 
They know no pity; they have thrust him 
out; they have slain the boy. My Blessed 1" 



VII 
CHARON'S PENNY 

Dr. Reddy had dropped into some sort of 
unreal languor — some fanciful state in his 
office chair, something exceedingly rare for 
him, when he felt a sensation of a presence 
— a presence sensibly and actually present. 
He had an emergent conviction that some 
one entered the room; yet he knew that no 
living hand had lifted the latch, no living 
foot crossed the threshold. He rose and 
took a few turns around, treating the occur- 
rence as a natural outcome of his unstable 
nerves. After depositing his case in its 
usual corner, he looked over his memoranda 
for the following day and settled back com- 
fortably in his chair with the British Medical 
Journal. 

A fumbling rap sounded faintly on the 



Little Christ Stones 97 

office door. As there was no response to his 
invitation to enter, he rose more than a 
trifle impatiently and crossed the floor. It 
was considerably after office hours, and the 
prospect of a belated patient was anything 
but pleasant, especially as he had had a very 
trying day. He threw open the door, and, 
for a moment of unprofessional discourtesy, 
stood staring into the wistful, pleading eyes 
of a young girl. 

The sensation of the curious trance-like 
thought — the illusive presence — had faded 
from his trained mind, leaving no prepared 
imagination behind, and no anticipation. 
His active, vigorous nature ran counter to 
dabblings in psychic phenomena, still, an 
indefinable air of mystery in the girl's bearing, 
something in her face, excited, for an instant, 
the doctor's curiosity. He was accustomed 
to observe with unapparent scrutiny the 



98 Little Christ Stories 

ensemble of his callers, yet her detached, im- 
partial attitude, a queer elusiveness of aspect 
irritated him with a sense of tantalization, 
and he waited impatiently for her to speak. 
"My mother, she is ill; you will come?" 
"What is her ailment? I will give you a 
prescription for her." The note of irritation 
in the doctor's voice jarred. 

"You will come. I will lead the way." 
The voice was sorrowful in its low in- 
sistence, and even through the reticence and 
briefness of the words spoken held in its 
slight palpitancy a certain importance. 

It caused the doctor to relax somewhat his 
austere manner, and he gently drew forward 
a chair, but she remained standing and in 
an attitude of readiness for flight. Astute 
as he was, an uncommon feeling puzzled 
him. And, too, even more marked than at 
the first glance, there was an unfamiliar, 



Little Christ Stories 99 

elusive expression about the pale, perfect 
lining of the features, the distant look of her 
eyes, and the way her hair floated from her 
white temples, like sweeps of pale gold in 
the evening sky. He deliberated a moment, 
then seized his case, and joined the girl 
standing with her hand on the door-latch 
ready to pass out. 

On before the doctor, always well in ad- 
vance, sped the light feet of the girl. Why 
could she not wait and walk with him? He 
must see her closer; he must question her; 
and he quickened his steps. But evidently 
the girl divined his intention. And inwardly 
the doctor fumed against the incalculable- 
ness of feminine flightiness in general, and 
against this evasion in particular. Yet at 
times she seemed quite near; he sometimes 
caught the gleam of her polished skin, which 
at times was devoid of color, and again 



100 Little Christ Stories 

glowed like the most delicate sunset. Her 
mantle — if mantle it was — of some whitish 
flowing stuff, hid her form, yet at times did 
not. It seemed to have some magic quality, 
and it might have been wings spreading 
from her form, for all he could tell of the 
scantily dressed, half-discerned figure. Much 
more than ordinary curiosity now impelled 
the doctor's steps. But her Ariel pace held, 
and try as he would, he could not overtake 
her. On down a narrow street and thence 
to the rope-ferry she swiftly led him. Here 
she waited until he joined her, when they 
entered together, the girl seating herself on 
the opposite side of the boat, and at the 
farther end, but in plain view of him. 

When the old ferryman shuffled forward to 
collect the fares, he approached the girl first 
but apparently ignored the small coin held 
timidly out to him. Doctor Reddy's keen 



Little Christ Stories 101 

Irish eyes were riveted upon the girl. Ac- 
customed as he was swiftly to generalize 
people, his appraisement of the girl was 
slow. Again the unkempt boatman passed 
her on his way back to his post; and again 
she held out the penny, gazing up into his 
face, while two little points of flame seemed 
to leap from the depths of her eyes. 

When they were ferried over, the airy form 
of the girl again led the way as if there were 
wings to her feet; and the weird Irish twilight 
helped the illusion, and he sometimes doubted 
whether she was palpably traversing the 
streets or not. Through dark closes and 
narrow streets — short cuts — her eyes seem- 
ingly untroubled by darkness, without hesi- 
tancy she drew the man after her. 

Reaching a rickety tenement, she began 
the ascent; up, flight after flight, each one 
more tumbledown than the last, she moved 



102 Little Christ Stories 

on before, until, reaching a door, she held 
it open and signed for the doctor to pass 
through, pointing as she did so to an old bed 
in a recess of the room on which a woman lay. 

The doctor began, quickly and deftly, to 
work over the woman, who was in a coma- 
tose state. He was in the habit of sharply 
scolding when neglect was as glaringly 
evident as it was here, and he turned from the 
patient to rebuke the girl for not calling in 
attendance sooner, and even for not applying 
simple remedies herself, but she was nowhere 
visible. Responding at last to the skillful 
treatment, the woman rallied, and upon 
opening her eyes looked at the man at her 
bedside in a dazed, wondering way. 

"Sure, an' who was it brought ye to my 
bedside?" she queried, "seein' that I thried 
agin an' agin to make my neighbor hear — 
the craythur! She'd come without askin' 



Little Christ Stories 103 

anny time if she but knew, but niver a soul 
could I make hear, an' niver a one came near 
me the long night an' day." 

"Who brought me to your bedside? A 
rather strange question, my good woman. 
A young girl, your daughter, brought me 
here — and none too soon, either," the doctor 
answered emphatically, again looking around 
the room for the messenger. "Wasn't she 
caring for you before summoning me?" he 
asked sharply. 

"My daughter, doctor — my daughter?" 
wailed the sick woman, turning her old face 
away as if pained, and shrinking into herself 
at the cold, curt tones of the physician } 
"Mother of God! My daughter?" 

"Yes. She came to my office saying that 
her mother was ill, and she wore such a 
beseeching look that, though I had decided 
to make no more calls tonight, I accom- 



104 Little Christ Stories 

panied her here." Still impatient over the 
late call, the doctor turned brusquely from 
chafing the woman's wrists to administer a 
cordial. 

"Sayin' as her mother was ill — her mother? 
Oh, for the love of the Blissed Virgin, doctor, 
thry an' tell me, thry an' remimber every 
word she said! For the love of God, remim- 
ber! What she said, doctor, an' what you've 
been seein', be after tellin' me. Son of 
Mary!" she moaned, and fell back with her 
eyes upraised to heaven. 

Nothing seemed to justify this passionate 
outburst, as far as the doctor saw, yet the 
old woman's manner impressed him against 
his will. 

"Those were the exact words she used, I 
am positive." Pity for the mother speaking 
in her was all that hindered the doctor from 
adding some caustic remarks. "Was your 



Little Christ Stories 105 

daughter not with you before she came for 
me?" he persisted, thinking she had not 
understood. 

"My daughter with me, doctor, before 
you came? Worra, worra!" 

"Yes. Didn't you send her for me?" 

"Send her for you? Sure an' I told ye, 
doctor, that niver a soul came near me the 
long night an' day. Tell me what she looked 
like, tell me. Thry an' tell me, doctor — for 
the Holy Mother's sake, thry!" and the 
coaxing Irish voice was reverence and prayer 
itself in its earnest entreaty. 

When the description was given, the 
woman gave way to an outburst of grief 
that threatened a relapse in her weakened 
condition. 

"It's the heavy heart she left me," she 
wailed, forgetting altogether the man's pres- 
ence in her distress, "an' I've worrited for 



106 Little Christ Stories 

her night an' day since. It's my daughter — 
may the saints protict us!" And she fumbled 
at her neck for her beads, and, crossing 
herself, devoutly ran over her prayers. 

"Your daughter will be back presently, 
will she not? There are necessary directions 
to be given, and she should be here. You 
are not in a condition to be left alone." If 
by his asperity the doctor thought to put a 
stop to this inscrutable talk, and lead the 
way to sensible conversation, the effect, 
whether from nervousness or fear of scoffing 
on his part, was diametrically opposite. 
The peaked gray face suddenly seemed to 
become finely veiled — masked. She looked 
infinite spaces away. 

"My daughter's away, doctor — she went 
away; she left me. Worra! Worra! An' she 
was that good!" 

"How could she be away when she brought 



Little Christ Stories 107 

me here tonight? What do you mean?" 
The doctor was manifestly impatient, but 
some disquieting sense of profanation softened 
his voice a trifle. 

But the woman only went off into some 
sort of rhapsody, wailing from her pallet of 
straw. 

"Worra! Worra! An' me that lonely! 
An' the bit an' sup's been hard to come by 
since she left me. Just to think of that now 
— just to think of that! Thry as I would, I 
couldn't make my next door neighbor hear 
when I thought my last hour had come, yet 
up there in the blissed heaven — Holy Mary, 
Mother of God! Would ye mind that now! 
She besaached leave of — an' did the beautiful 
gates open, an' did — Himself p'int the way to 
her — a thrid of light — the way to my poor 
home? Sure an' 'twas the love for her old 
mother that brought her; it couldn't die; 



108 Little Christ Stories 

it niver can die ; it's stronger than a thousand 
graves. An' the tenderness of her! The 
light of my old eyes — Mavourneen!" Was it 
some divine afflation that filled her whole 
being, some uplift that was vouchsafed to 
her? 

Dr. Reddy nodded to himself. The woman 
was indubitably suffering from dementia. 
But she seemed harmless, and he was seized 
with something like compunction at his own 
lack of feeling. And apparently so far from 
her imagining that there was anything absurd 
or unreasonable in her talk, she evidently 
regarded it in some transcendental manner 
utterly unintelligible to him. Perhaps, he 
reflected, it could be accounted for by the 
easy Irish superstition that makes mysteri- 
ous the most commonplace. Nevertheless 
there ran through it a vein of impressive 
earnestness and belief. The fervid attitude 



Little Christ Stories 109 

of the woman precluded the idea that she 
was feigning, though undoubtedly she evaded 
his questions as to the whereabouts of her 
daughter. As the doctor prepared to leave, 
after attending to her needs, he bent kindly 
over the bed. 

"Your daughter will be back presently, I 
suppose, to see to you." The woman's gentle 
reception of his persistency touched him, and 
he knew it was hardly professional to allow 
her to exert herself as she had, and he hast- 
ened to add, "It is because you are in need of 
care, immediate care, that I ask about her." 

"Sure an' I have no daughter, but what — " 
The woman's voice was cautiously lowered, 
and in sudden fervency she lifted her eyes to 
heaven, a smile of illuminating peace shining 
upon her countenance. Then her expression 
changed as if another thought flashed across 
her brain. She raised herself slowly and 



110 Little Christ Stories 

pointed with a long bony finger to the peat- 
blackened mantel, over which hung an old 
daguerreotype of a young girl. She leaned 
forward and lowered her voice to a grave 
intense key. 

"Is that like her, doctor? Is that the one 
ye saw?" 

He walked over not uncuriously, and with 
half-closed eyes critically scanned the features 
of the girl. 

"Yes, that is the girl that brought me here," 
and for the first time the cold professional 
tone gave way to one of real interest. 

"Worra! Worra! She's all I had. Would 
ye mind that, now!" and again she made the 
sacred gesture of her race. 

Though an irritating feeling of being 
baffled swept over the doctor, and he was 
almost angry at the old creature's evasive 
manner, in some subtle fashion a feeling, as 



Little Christ Stories 111 

real as it was new, held him, that somehow 
in that upper chamber he had been treading 
on holy ground. It was sacrilege, he told 
himself, to press farther. The thin old voice 
still trailed out of the shadows by the bed, 
but he questioned no more. She evidently 
was determined not to explain herself. He 
prolonged his leave-taking in hopes of being 
able to study the girl when she returned. 
As she did not appear, he summoned the 
sick woman's neighbor, and gave her direc- 
tions and left. 

"It's the queer sort of a night we've been 
havin' altogether," the neighbor nodded to 
the invalid after the doctor had closed the 
door. "Don't tell me there's nothin' queer 
around. The signs and the portents that 
I've seen! An' to think that ye'd be lyin' 
here all this time an' niver one to come near 
ye! It's not for nothin' I'm seein' things! 



112 Little Christ Stories 

There's a meanin' to all this, believe me. 
At my door it was that I saw the sign I speak 
of — a flasht of light that blinded me for a 
minute. It crost me an' lit up your door, 
an' was gone before I could think. An' I 
saw it again; twict tonight have I seen it. 
May the saints protict us! I'll be after askin' 
the priest the meanin' of that. Mebbe it 
Was some trick of lightnin' in the heavens, 
but it makes a body take to shiverin'. 
There's many a trick with spirits an' fiashin's 
in ould Ireland, an' sorra wan can tell what 
it is. It's the priest himself I'll be after 
tellin'." And the neighbor made the sign 
of the Cross and murmured an Ave on her 
beads. 

On the return trip across the ferry, Dr. 
Reddy approached the old ferryman, to 
whom he was well known, and asked: 

"Why didn't you take the young girl's 



Little Christ Stories 113 

fare— the one that crossed over with me? 
She held it out to you. She sat over there," 
and the doctor pointed to the place. "You 
didn't appear to see her. She offered it to 
you twice. She had come in with me. Do 
you remember her?" 

The squalid boatman fell to scratching the 
side of his head, and he looked up at the 
doctor quizzingly, but he answered gravely 
enough : 

"I saw ye when ye came in, an' I sez to 
myself, 'The doctor's out late tonight; 
some poor soul must be at death's door.' 
An' I must have been lookin' so hard at ye, 
doctor, an' thinkin' of the trouble, that I 
didn't see the woman." The boatman's 
head shook negatively, and his eyes were 
lowered reflectively for a minute. He looked 
up quickly again into the doctor's face, and 
pointing to a dim corner of the old boat, 



114 Little Christ Stories 

continued in a rather aggrieved tone, "An' 
she came in with ye, an' sat over there — a 
young girl? Bedad, Doctor, I wisht ye had 
told me when I refused the pinny; it isn't, 
like me to refuse the fare at anny time; my 
mind must have been wanderin'. I wisht 
I could remimber. I passed her by twict, 
ye say, an' twict she held out the pinny? I 
saw ye, doctor, easy enough, but it's what 
I'm not seein' that's givin' me trouble," and 
the old man again fell to scratching his head 
and looking oddly at the doctor. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proc< 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 



PreservationTechnologi 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVA1 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



